THE WOMEN IN THE CASTLE Jessica Shattuck
MY RATING ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️▫️ PUBLISHER Bonnier Zaffre PUBLISHED March 28,2017
SUMMARY November 9, 1938, the Countess Von Lingerfel and her niece-in-law Marianne were hosting the bohemian annual harvest party at the old family castle in Bavaria. It was perhaps a final night to enjoy some reasonable company. Germany was on the verge of disaster. During the party, Marianne’s workaholic husband, Albrecht, and a small group of friends, critical of the Nazi’s had gathered in the castle library. They had just heard the news of Goebbels’ order to insight rioting and destroy Jewish property. Decisions were made in the library that night to actively collude against the Hitler regime. Something had to be done. Marianne was asked to take charge of caring for the wives and children of these men should something happen to them.
The resistors’ July 20, 1944, plot to assassinate Hitler failed. All the resistors who had been in the library that night were exterminated. It was Marianne’s time to act. First, she was able to rescue the once beautiful and naïve Benita from Russian soldiers in Berlin, and she then found Benita’s son, Martin, in an children’s home in Thuringa. Sometime later, Marianne located Ania, and her two boys, Anselm and Wolfgang, who had been languishing in the Tollingen Displaced Persons Camp. Marianne, Benita and Ania and their six children, made their home within the kitchen of the ancient, crumbling castle, Burg Lingenfels. They formed a unique family, each full of deep pains and dark secrets. All three women desperately tried to grasp onto that which would help them recover from the choices and actions of the past several years.
REVIEW The Women in the Castle is a must read for historical fiction fans. It’s focus is the recovery of the most tumultuous period in the 20th century. It’s a dramatic story of loss, survival, recovery and strength of three very different women with very different experiences. The relationships of the women are complex and poignant.
Shattuck’s writing is clear and wonderfully descriptive. Her elaborate descriptions of the castle the night of the harvest party and then in the postwar refugee period were impossible to forget. The stories of Marianne, Benita and Ania are hauntingly powerful.
Women in the Castle’s perspective of the resistance and postwar recovery period is refreshingly interesting and unique. It will perhaps broaden the way you look at World War II and may even make you think more critically about current events.
This book perspective is very personal for author, Jessica Shadduck. She dedicated this book to her mother and grandmother. Shattuck shared in an editorial on March 24, 2017, that her grandparents had joined the Nazi party in 197, to become youth leaders in an agricultural education program. Shadduck was more than likely able to use her grandmother’s experience to create this breathtaking book, which was most certainly written from her heart.
Other books by Jessica Shaddick included The Hazards of Good Breeding, 2004, and Perfect Life, 2010.
Thanks to Netgalley and Bonnier Zaffre for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
